"De-nuking"?

I somehow doubt that he invented the phrase. It has a think-tank signature. Wait a day or two and you'll probably see every rightwing blogger, pundit, journalist and politician uttering the phrase over and over again. And as usual, Lefties will fall for it and start using the phrase as well.

But don't think I actually read Steyn--I got this second-hand from Bouphonia, who neatly summarizes the world view of Steyn and so many others:

It smacks of intellectual dishonesty to rag on someone's writing and then smugly claim "I don't actually read him - I get all my knowledge second-hand".

Disagree, sure. But failing to delve into the source? Would you accept shoddy work like that from a student?

The question is, is there any way to stop this crazy train?

No, I have read Steyn, and I read the article Bouphenia is referring to (the link is on his page). I do not seek out his swill, however, and the only time I bother to look is when someone else dips a toe into the fetid swamp and calls me over to look at the gross thing bobbing in there.

Wargasm! Good one PZ!
He's another typical "Kill for Christ" type.
God of love indeed.....

Hey, at least a fetid swamp is full of living bacteria. A nuked landscape is more or leses lifeless, though perhaps not for long. (I seem to recall some report somewhere that mentioned that people had found bacteria which had adapted to living inside nuclear reactors.

de-nuking gives an excelent name for that - if you have a few nukes more than you need, or some nukes past the warranty, well, let's de-nuke : pick a country you don't like and detonate them there

No, I have read Steyn, and I read the article Bouphenia is referring to

Fair 'nuff. I took your phrase "don't think I actually read" at face value.

Missing from all of this is the intentions of Iran. If you take them at face value it's pretty damned dismal.

Absolutely.
While he arrives at the wrong conclusions (for me)I reckon his views on iran and the ease with which they would use WMD (deja vu all over again)are probably on the button.
His solution scares me, in that we'll have:
One bunch of religious nutters acting on hunches and looking forward to dieing and the rapture wanting destroy another bunch of religious nutters who also are looking forward to dieing and being elevated to paradise and their virgins.
What has religion got to offer us besides doom, gloom, death and suffering.

My I am depressed

Honestly, I'm hoping that some thinktank came up with "de-nuking", because that seems like a giant misframe, to me.

It sure as hell calls the concept of "nuking" to mind, and I really doubt that's what the RWNs would like to do.

Keith Douglas wrote:

Hey, at least a fetid swamp is full of living bacteria. A nuked landscape is more or leses lifeless, though perhaps not for long. (I seem to recall some report somewhere that mentioned that people had found bacteria which had adapted to living inside nuclear reactors.

Interesting site about Deinococcus radiodurans and radiation resistance....
http://chaoticutopia.com/wp/?p=254

There's nothing like a little microbiology to round out a
political discussion!

if you have a few nukes more than you need, or some nukes past the warranty, well, let's de-nuke : pick a country you don't like and detonate them there

I remember back in high school we used to stand down from imminent snowball fights with the command to disarm. We just had a tendency to disarm in the general direction of the enemy.

See, it's funny when the weapons are snowballs, and you're in high school.

There you go again, calling people names and getting all personal. "Stupid." "Swill." "intellectually deficient." Sigh.

That is fine if all you want to do is get "amens" from people just like yourself. I had hoped you would be interested in changing minds, which will be necessary to achieve the goals you claim to have. Personal attacks---no matter how righteous the insulter might feel about her or himself---always take away from the argument.

I realize that others will call me bad names for saying that, which only proves my point.

Dr. Myers, surely you would not care for people who disagree with you to attack you in a personal fashion over various aspects of your personal or professional life? And if anyone did so, they would be horrible people, let me be clear.

You can dislike Steyn's arguments. I applaud your saying that you disagree with him and that your way of thinking is better. But the personal stuff---which appears to be a hallmark of your argumentative style---well, I think it is very counterproductive. You seem to feel that people who disagree with you are uniformly "stupid," which is an...ahem...unusual style of argument, especially for someone who claims to be "reality based."

But all the name calling and anger does get you "dittos" from people who already agree with you.

@ Karl
Blogs are publicly available, but still reflect personal thoughts. Elegant words that express my disliking someone don't change the fact that I'd rather see their writings forgotten in the bottom of a deep lake (to put it mildly :P )So better be honest about it. I disagree so many times with many posts or comments written in here, but I ignore the "name calling" if I think reading them will add to my personal arguments. Sometimes I think that being called "stupid" without reason is better than being called "stubborn" and matching to the description.

About de-nuking: Ok, we know the US have nukes and are able to use them, can they go back to playing now?? "My nukes are better than yours" "No, mine are and I'll prove it". As I see it,
either
I become part of collateral damage of
Iranian nukes, India's nukes, Chinese nukes, other asian/african/east european nukes
or
I become part of collateral damage of US de-nuking nukes.
Hell of a choice!

Dear CD:

Thanks for your comments. It's just that the political climate in this country has degenerated to name calling---Rush Limbaugh says "X" and Al Franken says "Y" and they are both just playing to a small hyperaggressive group that honestly seems to believe that their political opponents are evil or stupid (and sometimes both).

It's like when Dr. Myers calls a person of faith "stupid," which he does quite often. This does not advance the cause of greater acceptance of evolutionary thought. Instead, it plays to stereotype and makes both sides fight each other more.

So thanks for not calling ME a name for trying to appeal to calmer tones!

"wargasm" finally I get my chance to propose my roughly related word to describe the Bush foreign policy:

freejad--in the 'righteous' cause of freedom & democracy to attack countries of non-believers, regardless of loss of life of the civilian, & military alike to save them from themselves.

Mark Steyn wrote:

What's the difference between a hothead and a moderate? Well, the extremist Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," while the moderate Rafsanjani has declared that Israel is "the most hideous occurrence in history," which the Muslim world "will vomit out from its midst" in one blast, because "a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counter-strike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world."

In World War II, it was the Allies that were lucky enough to develop the atomic bomb first. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unquestionably terrible events but does anyone doubt that, if the Nazis or Imperial Japanese had won the race, it would have been London and New York that would have been reduced to radioactive ruins?

Whether or not "de-nuking" is some think-tank buzz-word is irrelevant. Do you want an Iran - led by the likes of Ahmedinijad or even Rafsanjani - with nuclear weapons or not? And, if not, what will be effective in stopping them?

There are undoubtedly a lot of moderate Muslims who are kind, compassionate and decent. There were also a lot of moderate people in Germany after WWI but they got brushed aside, cowed or 'eliminated' by people who were prepared to be a lot more ruthless and violent than they were. They were only stopped eventually - and at great cost - by countries that found the backbone to be as violent and ruthless as the enemy where necessary.

While

...as a female Muslim demonstrator in Toronto put it: "We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law."

...and the obliteration of Israel remain articles of faith for Islam, that religion will always be a threat to the peace of the world.

That world was impressed by the network of autobahnen built by the Nazis in the 1930s, preferring to ignore the fact that they could also be used to speed the movement of military forces around the country. Anyone who believes Iran's nuclear programme is only for peacefull purposes is being equally naive.

We are going to nuke their nuclear facilities to de-nuke their potential to nuke. I guess it's a new way to jigger a sentence to insert more "nukes" and thereby bring the sad little man to his desired wargasm.

You are in top form today, PZ!

"Person of faith". That's a PC term that makes me gag. It encompasses religious suicide-bombers, Mother Theresa, Mormon boys on bicycles, and new-age Indigo Children believers. Do you really want to identify your belief system with all "people of faith"?

Anyone who believes Iran's nuclear programme is only for peacefull purposes is being equally naive.

So it's which power is going to find the most popular excuse to use its nukes first? So it's people outside the US and Middle East watching and thinking that getting their hands on some basic nuclear weapon ASAP is not such a bad idea after all?
De-nuking Iran before it gets powerful enough to strike looks like a good move,provided that the US will effectively, instantly, once and for all neutralise its nuclear potential. No losses, no miscalculations.

OK, I'm not going to get into statistics...

Mr. Spedding,

Yes the political leaders will whip the up support for their regime with warmongering words, but nearly always they will take the expeditious path of avoiding repercussion; long wars, economic blight & death of their own citizens and soldiers, ending with words alone. Then some are simple enough to actually have drunk the coolaid [think W].

How do we deal with such crazy words? We build economic relationships that our 'foes' would be foolish to jeopardize by radical offensive actions. That's right, we invite them into the smaller world of the 21st century. Isolation and isolationism enable an individual or a country to feel more free to act without considering others.

minor point: Why be a crank by quoting some irrelevant, low level protestor[woman in Toronto]? You seem happy to lump all muslims into the radical, 'out for our blood' camp.

Ultimately we cannot hope to keep others from not using 'nuquler' weapons if by our own example we demonstrate that feeling threatened by our enemies justifies their use. In the long run, with precedent set, some country will feel free to follow suit. It's far too easy to build the bomb.

Nagasaki & Hiroshima are not precedents. They are remote, from the infancy of the nuclear-capable era. Any use now would change the precedent status. So W would put our kids & grandkids in a much less secure world just as he has saddled them with war debt. Here's to his legacy! Hope he leaves it as only massive longterm federal debt and not world instability.

Agreed. When you try to bully someone, as we've been trying with Iran and North Korea, they either knuckle under or they turn against you (in these cases, by publicly accelerating their nuclear programs). Sovereign states don't have to knuckle under to someone, except in wartime, so these folks ratchet up their nuclear development and get pi**ed at us.

Sure, it looks like they probably would've developed nukes if we'd stuck to economic measures etc. (esp. N. Korea), but one thing worse than a new nuclear power is a new nuclear power with a grudge against you.

I must appologize for my prior ignorance about these idiots actually seriously talking about using nukes. Mind you, it "may" be the only effective way to destroy some hardened targets, the conventional means being all but worthless, but I wasn't aware that Iran's nuke program was being run in bunkers a miles deep with thousands of feet of hardened concrete and steel... Who knew.... Yeah, nothing like picking the single stupidest weapon possible to deal with what can't be much more structurally well built that @#$$#@$ Chernobol, which was practically housed inside a cardboard box, and probably far less hardened then even that.

Remove the possible threat coming from a bunch of nuts that have spent the last several years making it obvious that they intend to "look" like, even if they may not actually "act" like Nazi germany, great. But what idiot uses a fucking nuke to do it, just because they happen to have one handy? Never mind, I know the answer to that, the same clown that couldn't wait for the UN to get its head out of its ass and come up with a better way to get rid of the Iraqi Mafia families, and then screwed the whole project up anyway. Not that the officially elected Immans in Iraq are not doing a damn fine job of screwing it up more all on their own, because they can't grasp what their own $#$#!$ people managed to when they voted, that peace happens by compromise, not by trying to stab everyone that won't conform in the back.

Heh, I got an idea. The Fundies here are so sure they can "Fix" the problem, why not ship every moron from the dark red areas that's a fundie to the Middle East and let the whole bloody bunch of morons all kill each other. But lets give the Iraqi, etc. that actually believe in liberalism and peace visa to come here first. If there is anything left in 50 years, their kids can go back and bury all the corpses from the fundies working out all their "misunderstandings". ;)

Ian H Spedding: I for one do want Iran not to have nuclear weapons. But attacking the country preemptively to stop them from having them is a recipe for disaster and, if nuclear weapons are used to this aim, insanely hypocritical. Right now the US and its nuclear allies are by far the ones in breach of the NPT, and so it would also show good faith to work to reverse that. But the US is not doing that - on the contrary, it is ratcheting up its own program, etc.

First, thanks for the link!

Second, I'll take this quote as exemplary of a type of thinking I find problematic:

"Anyone who believes Iran's nuclear programme is only for peacefull purposes is being equally naive.

Posted by: Ian H Spedding"

As I see it, this is a non sequitur. You can think whatever you like about Iran's intentions. What's at issue, here, is whether BushCo has the ability to do anything about it without making the situation even worse. If you want to debate taking action against Iran, that's where you have to start, in my view.

Look at it this way: If I have a medical condition that requires surgery, the stark fact of my need for surgery doesn't make it logical for me to hire a kindergartener to do the job.

The really childish people in this debate are the ones who assume that just because we want a certain outcome, we can make it happen. It leads directly to the sorts of false dichotomy that were deployed before Iraq: Do you want to do nothing, or do you want Saddam to kill us all? Lacking competence and goodwill at the top, all bets are irrevocably off.

Dan wrote:

How do we deal with such crazy words? We build economic relationships that our 'foes' would be foolish to jeopardize by radical offensive actions. That's right, we invite them into the smaller world of the 21st century. Isolation and isolationism enable an individual or a country to feel more free to act without considering others.

It takes two to tango. What if Iran isn't interested in building an economic relationship with you? There are plenty of other countries that would be interested in forming a relationship with Iran on more favorable terms than you might be prepared to offer.

minor point: Why be a crank by quoting some irrelevant, low level protestor[woman in Toronto]? You seem happy to lump all muslims into the radical, 'out for our blood' camp.

No, I don't think they're all "out for our blood" but they would all like us to convert to Islam. Some of them are prepared to be more forceful about achieving that than others. They fly aircraft into buildings and the moderates, while they deplore such behaviour, don't appear to be very effective in doing anything to stop it.

Keith Douglas wrote:

Ian H Spedding: I for one do want Iran not to have nuclear weapons. But attacking the country preemptively to stop them from having them is a recipe for disaster and, if nuclear weapons are used to this aim, insanely hypocritical. Right now the US and its nuclear allies are by far the ones in breach of the NPT, and so it would also show good faith to work to reverse that. But the US is not doing that - on the contrary, it is ratcheting up its own program, etc.

Appearing hypocritical is a small price to pay for preventing Iran developing nuclear weapons. It would be great if everyone abided by the NPT but the reality is that isn't going to happen any time soon. Do you really think that if the US and UK scrapped their nuclear arsenals the likes of Iran would abandon their nuclear ambitions? And, to get more specific, we're pretty sure Israel already has nuclear weapons, but is she more likely to pop one over Teheran or is it more likely the other way round given the previous statements by Ahmedinijad and Rafsanjani?

Phila wrote:

Posted by: Ian H Spedding"As I see it, this is a non sequitur. You can think whatever you like about Iran's intentions. What's at issue, here, is whether BushCo has the ability to do anything about it without making the situation even worse. If you want to debate taking action against Iran, that's where you have to start, in my view.

I agree and I take some comfort from the fact that the original military operations against Iran went well. It was adequate preparations to handle the aftermath that were lacking.